How Many New Members

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 10:41 am

algale wrote:I hope I am wrong, but I remain suspicious that this membership surge reflects reality.

In another related thread Admin stated that the new members look real because these new members have been validated by responding to an email sent to them at their registered email account. http://shopsmith.net/forums/showpost.htm?p=138705&postcount=18

I understand Admin's rationale, but I have to wonder. If these are real new members, why aren't we seeing correspondingly large numbers of new members posting with questions? Of course not everyone who is real will post, but by my unscientific sense of things we are seeing roughly the usual number of new members every month who make at least one post while the membership roll is swelling at an unprecedented pace. That means the proportion of lurkers to active members is suddenly increasing without any obvious explanation.

Another hint (and one I don't expect to be told about) about the reality of these new members would be whether Shopsmith has experienced a surge in the sale of parts and consumables that corresponds with recent rapid membership growth. It is one thing to lurk on the forum, but at some point if you are real, you need to buy repair parts and consumables.

As long as there is no spam (apparently there is not) even if there is no significant increase in member activity what damage is done by having this unusual surge. None that I can see (from my very limited point of view) but that leaves the question. What purpose is being served? I am baffled.

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 3:12 pm

Update, new members for March is 3054. Slightly larger then I had predicted.

Ed

eartigas · Post by **eartigas** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 3:31 pm

Probably the spamming robots are growing more sophisticated and can complete the whole process.
Now they are dormant and ready to SPAM!

I wish we have so many new members and many female representatives but I don't think we are that "cool" these days.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:32 pm

reible wrote:Update, new members for March is 3054. Slightly larger then I had predicted.

Ed

You and I have significant different numbers.

First member in March was #19608 while the last member in March was #16139

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 5:57 pm

dusty wrote:You and I have significant different numbers.

First member in March was #19608 while the last member in March was #16139

I'm letting the system count. Forum provides me the count by way of a query without manual first and last numbers.

It is like the current member number is 19633 while the last persons member number is 1677. Off by 44, I can't explain that either.

Ed

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:27 pm

reible wrote:I'm letting the system count. Forum provides me the count by way of a query without manual first and last numbers.

It is like the current member number is 19633 while the last persons member number is 1677. Off by 44, I can't explain that either.

Ed

That 44 member number delta is due to the simple fact that during the very early days of the forum there was a block of numbers that were never assigned and still have not been. Example: Of the first 50 numbers (u=1 to u=50) there are only nine that have been assigned. This accounts for 41 of the 44.

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 7:00 pm

There are worse possibilities than spammers...

I was recently reading of a huge spike in things like DOS attacks from hackers using a whole bunch of "other" servers. Just this week I understand that the DNS system was seriously overloaded.

.

Billdit · Post by **Billdit** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 8:14 pm

See posts 55 thru 78 on the " good morning newbie" thread on community...

I tried to explain what is going on...

Now, if i recieved an e-mail saying I'd be dropped if I didn't respond "I wanted to stay on" it would not bother me at all... I'd respond and move on... the "unreal" members would not respond and we wouldn't stand as much a chance of bogging down..

Just because we don't know why this is happening we shouldn't ignore that it has potential of future problems...

Just my 2 cents...

frank81 · Post by **frank81** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 9:34 am

dusty wrote:That 44 member number delta is due to the simple fact that during the very early days of the forum there was a block of numbers that were never assigned and still have not been. Example: Of the first 50 numbers (u=1 to u=50) there are only nine that have been assigned. This accounts for 41 of the 44.

The forum is basically contained in a database of a few tables. Usually, tables have an automatically generated ID# (key) for each record that increments up on its own. If you delete a record (member), it doesn't go back and re-use the free key number.

So the missing "member numbers" = members that were deleted from the system. And most of them in the first 50 entries makes sense as they were probably testing things out.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Wed Apr 03, 2013 7:19 am

Most of the new members are a puzzle to me but not all of them. Some are really Shopsmith owners and to them we say Welcome Ya'll. But them others are here with a motive. The latest is:

[ATTACH]20803[/ATTACH]
Member #19875

Posts like this one I believe are put there to make money. I suspect that someone gets paid based on the number of times this site is visited. In other words, I just contributed to this spammers welfare and so did you if you looked.

There is apparently no harm being done but it can be aggravating. Several of the "new members" have posted ads like this but for "self storage" facilities. Actually, they don't post these ads. They simply include a link (website address) in their profile. If you don't go look, you'll never know it has happened. This, no harm done.

Someone, anyone please correct me if I am wrong.